Tag Archives: Gregory Scott Katsoulis

Speth Jime is about to turn fifteen. She is equipped with the requisite band and implants so the moment her birthday arrives she will be charged for every movement or word that falls under copyright. Every nod or scream will cost her 0.99/sec. Saying “sorry” is ten dollars and a legal admission of guilt.

Even with the most minimal words and gestures, Speth is never getting out of debt. Not with her family being sued for an illegal music download dating back five generations. All Speth can really hope for is to avoid being taken away by Debt Services the way her parents were to pollinate crops with a brush and eyedropper in Carolina until their debts are paid.

One thing that might help is Speth’s Last Day speech which she can use to win over sponsors who might offer product discounts or other lucrative perks that could lead to employment. Speth is ready to make that speech when she watches her friend Beecher jump off a bridge rather than work to pay off his family’s crippling debt.

She can’t imagine ignoring Beecher’s suicide to make a speech. But she also can’t imagine how to break her contract without also putting her family into even more debt. That is until Speth finds a loophole: she only has to recite her speech if she actually speaks. Instead Speth takes a vow of silence even avoiding copyrighted gestures.

All Rights Reserved is Katsoulis’s debut novel and the start of a new series.

Speth’s first person narration brings her world to terrifying life from the extremely litigious culture and the power of copyright (Speth’s haircut is in the public domain, but only if it stays messy enough to be different from a pixie cut) to the 3D printed housing units that didn’t print quite right in the poorer sections of town.

Because of Speth’s decision to stop speaking, a lot of the book takes place in her head as she keeps herself at a remove from family and strangers trying to understand why she refuses to speak. As Speth’s actions gain momentum she also finds herself at the center of an unlikely rebellion as others begin to support her and even follow her lead. This one decision sets Speth on a course to learn dangerous truths about the rot at the center of her world and maybe even figure out how to stop it.

All Rights Reserved is a fast-paced story with action on every page and incredibly intricate world building. A worthy read-a-like for fans of dystopian classics like Uglies and The Hunger Games.

I love the world building here. It’s very absurd and will appeal to fans of the hunger games and uglies. But it’s also almost entirely focused on debt (much like one segment of where futures end) and it just stressed me the hell out.

Possible Pairings: Landscape With Invisible Hand by M. T. Anderson, Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Proxy by Alex London, Where Futures End by Parker Peeveyhouse, Uglies by Scott Westerfeld